Pinot
 

I swear a cup of tea is just as nice, better even. Its not the pinot, its the idea of the pinot...but we are teetotlers, so tea it is!

This is a test of your will. Do you want to be sober more than you want to drink? It comes down to that.

Is she a normal drinker? The one-glass-is-all type of drinker? We are not normal drinkers and must keep reminding ourselves of this fact.

Stay sober and practice gratitude and the desire to drink will fade until you don't notice it anymore. :hug:

It's just flavoured ethanol. Add some thickener and it's hand sanitizer. Gross. You wouldn't give it to your dog or your kids. It's romanticized poison.

Try and think it through sohard - play the tape to the end as they say.

A glass of pinot by the fire was never the reality for me - week long benders, illness shame degradation and self destruction were always the results for for me....

It was always the first glass that started the madness, not the last.

D

It was never 'a' nice civilized glass of wine for me. No matter how good my intentions, it usually ended up being the whole bottle.
I'm glad you posted, Sohard. It won't always feel this challenging.

You've come too far to think about giving in now. Sorry about that.

butbutbut...are you not talking here about missing something you didn’t actually have?
did you really have a nice glass ofpinot in front of the fireplace over a couple of hours and then stretch, forget about the rest in the glass, yawn and go brush your teeth and go to bed?
missing how it never was is a bad mindtrick.

“I miss drinking three bottles of Pinot in front of the fire, then vomiting in the bathroom, banging into the wall a few times on my way to the bedroom, falling against the dresser, crawling into bed and crying myself to sleep, only to wake up and wonder how I got a black eye.”

Yeah, except I don’t.

It will always miss that, yeah ?

Separating from the desire by recognizing and identifying It as coming from the Beast and not Me, allows me to be comfortable and secure in My decision to abstain.

I never want to be a drunk again, so I don't/won't drink , I know the Beast will never be comfortable with that, so I decided to not care about Its missing, I can sense it , I just decided not to ever care again . Too bad for It, but I don't miss what I don't want.

It always wants more and will always miss not getting any, abstaining is actually not as hard as It tries to make Me feel that it is.

Separation is the key " I thought I was past this" is AV, IT has You fooled by foisting the desire for more booze on You as opposed to You simply recognizing the Beast's desire and disowning it.

"Man was my AV cranked up watching my sister drink booze" is a totally different frame/mindset from " I thought every shred of residual desire would be gone". Isolate the desire and ignore It, and you can be left with a nice evening in front of the fire.

How are you doing, Sohard? :)

Oh my, I missed this Sohard, and I’m so relieved to read your update! Go you, you’re an awesome sobriety warrioress!

This summer I went with my kids to climb a mountain. It was the first time they were doing a summit over 3000 metres. I used to do a lot of high mountains. I was eagerly waiting for my kids to be old enough and fit enough to do it together. Since they were very small we have gone a bit higher every year.

I was so excited we could finally go onto the proper mountains, with a bit of light climbing and all.

Guess what? I almost did not make it. I have discovered in horror my mountain days, as I knew them, are gone. I will never do the Kilimanjaro either, which was a big dream of mine. There are things I have done in the past, that I will never do again, for one reason or another. Other things I will not even get to try.

I have accepted alcohol fits the category, with the massive difference that I am not missing out on anything. I have found myself really missing alcohol in specific situations (similar to the one you are describing). The day after I realised I had missed nothing at all. The glass of wine did not change the place (sharing time with your sister, the location, etc). The only thing that changes is how you feel the day after.

I wish you a lovely week ahead

I was out at a Thanksgiving dinner last night at the in-laws who all like to party. I was the only sober one, although a few other women drank lightly. By the time we left, one guest had almost knocked the dinner table over and spilled wine everywhere. Another guest was almost in tears and acting super dramatic. And the host kept insulting people.

Although I remember my first Thanksgiving as a non-drinker feeling out of sorts and like maybe I was missing out, now at my third year.... part of me was amused and mildly entertained watching people spiral, but a much bigger part was appalled and turned off, and the biggest part was a huge feeling of satisfaction that it wasn't me acting the fool.

It really does get easier and better. You aren't missing out on anything.

The only way to get past something (anything, a feeling, a thought, an event, a parked car, a crowd of people; whatever), is to keep moving forward.

If you pause, you are staying with the thought. It is a thought, nothing more. According to experts, the average person has 70,000 thoughts per day. That is a lot of thoughts and only 24 hours to process them :scared:

I need to be careful in my selection process of deciding which thoughts to spend time with and which thoughts to merely move past. Okay, I had that thought. Now onto the next one.

Pinot.

My daughter took a French class last year. If I remember right, Pinot is French for "If you drink me I will destroy your life, then kill you." (At least for me.)

I believe there's a couple of versions, like the very classy Pinot Noir, French for "If you drink me I will destroy you sooner or later."

Then there's the lesser-known, sophisticated Pinot Blanc, French for "If you drink me I will destroy you later or sooner."